David Collins: The Day will look at solutions to the region's housing crisis
Apr. 12—I'll admit to a little skepticism when The Day newsroom first announced plans for a fulsome reporting project looking at the region's housing problems and potential solutions.
I thought to myself at the time that the promised reporting resources might have been better directed at another topic.
Boy, was I wrong. It's a good thing I am not in charge.
The Day's timing on the housing crisis reporting project has turned out to be pitch perfect, and I look forward with great interest to see how it unfolds and what we all learn. The project will informally kick off with a session from 1 to 3 p.m. Wednesday at the Public Library of New London, with the public invited to share their housing stories and dilemmas.
The Housing Solutions Lab, a yearlong project staffed with two full-time reporters, will look at, among other things, affordable housing, segregation, housing insecurity and homelessness. It is being funded by a variety of nonprofit contributors as well as with donations from readers.
I can't recall a time when the housing situation in southeastern Connecticut, mirroring so many national trends and problems, has looked so problematic as it does now, in the still-unfolding pandemic.
The combination of an already tight housing market in the region, exacerbated by punishing inflation eating into household incomes and the spiraling sales prices of houses and the cost of construction has created a growing and frightening housing crisis.
It was only a few years ago that the Connecticut legislature split largely down party lines on a vote to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour, with Republicans refusing to vote for a measure that began slowly raising the rate to a final increase next year.
In light of today's staggering 8% inflation, that meager pay increase is hardly enough to help the working poor keep up, especially with the essential costs of housing.
You don't have to spend much time perusing the region's real estate rental listings, with an ordinary studio in New London going for more than $1,000 a month, to see how challenging the market has become.
The outlook can be just as bleak for young people trying to buy their first home, with the price of modest, entry-level homes drifting way out of reach. Even the fixer-up option is disappearing for many, with the cost of materials for even simple renovations becoming prohibitive.
It's a middle class crisis, too, not just one harming the poor.
It's a complicated topic that is going to require a lot of investigative firepower. Southeastern Connecticut, with its urban centers, sprawling suburbs and rural enclaves is a patchwork of housing cultures and traditions that have grown organically over the years, guided by custom, history and, of course, land regulations.
The region's towns have been looking at those land use regulations as they pertain to affordable housing, because they are required to do so before the end of this fiscal year, by state law.
The process has opened a discussion in Stonington, for instance, where opposition has arisen to a consultant's study proposing decreased regulation and tax abatements for developers building affordable housing.
Some are calling for more creative solutions appropriate to the town's character, instead of relaxed rules and raw subsidies for big developers who want to build large, profit-making subsidized affordable housing behemoths.
The town already has some unique regulations that permit accessory dwellings in single-family neighborhoods, the kind of solution that might more evenly distribute new housing within the existing suburban landscape.
In Waterford, officials are talking about involving more nonprofits in planning affordable planning.
I look forward to community participation in the Housing Solutions Lab and all the new ideas and solutions that might be teased to the surface.
Good luck to all.
This is the opinion of David Collins.
